Russian Navy: Status and News #6

It is about water displacement and it is something like 3-4m or so, but in some places it is shallower than that.

These canals are not normally used for patrol boats to transfer between fleets because there are height limits that often require masts and radars to be removed for the trip so it is not something you can zip through and then zip straight back for.

There is a couple of Combat Approved episodes for a Corvette type that is transferred along the canal system and it is quite interesting.

I would say a dedicated patrol barge of relatively shallow displacement could be developed intended for river operations... the certainly do have armed ships for river duties.... they often fit them with multiple rocket launch tubes and the turrets of obsolete tanks like the PT-76 and the T-54/55 turrets with guns mounted for use against shore targets.

Talks of ships carrying UKSK launch tubes would be tricky because such tubes are 10m long.

Something whose launch tubes could be horizontal for carriage and raised up for launch inside a standard shipping crate might be a solution but in such an instance it would be simpler and cheaper to just mount them on trucks or trains rather than block up canals with such things.

Speaking of the Project 20386 corvette , wiki, although not a reliable source, claims that its been canceled, true or just another NATO Nazi propaganda?

That is just wiki being wiki... if you follow the link they give the article in TASS states:

"It is not expected that it will be commissioned in its present-day version," the source added. "The ship will be completed in accordance with a modified project and will join the Russian Navy in a totally new, more balanced version."

In other words the first of the series needed some changes and these changes will be made before they consider serial production... pretty much the same thing that happened to the Lada class SSKs and the Ivan Gren class landing ships... they built the first version and found it was limited or not properly balanced in terms of capabilities so they fix the problems with a redesign and then start serial production.

Something  the US Navy should have done with their Zumwalt class destroyers and LCS class frigates... instead of making three and 16 respectively before realising they don't work and having to cancel them and put something else into production instead.

And important note on that TASS article the Wiki page also ignored was this one:

TASS has been unable to officially confirm this information at the time of the publication.

They can remove masts and often have floatation aides to allow ships of greater displacement to pass through the canal system... but it is not for regular traverse operations... this is for moving a ship to a new base before it is finished...

It is not an unsolvable problem.

Improving the waterways by dredging them or increasing the height of bridges will allow larger heavier river boats to operate there too improving capacity for traffic.

I would think someone in the west would understand and think that to be quite natural... the revival of naval guns is not a new idea...

The Zumwalt class was largely designed around a brand new gun that was supposed to revolutionise the navy by having a weapon that could deliver HE payload accurately over 100s of kms to targets far more cheaply than a missile could.

At the moment they are talking about reduced diameter low drag 152mm HE shells with flight ranges of up to 180km... this is a reduced calibre low drag projectile that is wrapped in a sabot to fit the barrel which is released as the round clears the muzzle.... use a bigger sabot for the exact same projectile and load it into a 203mm gun and you have a bigger propellant charge and probably a longer barrel and even more range for zero extra development cost.

Spend a bit more money on a 203mm version and you could have a heavier warhead and perhaps onboard propulsion... namely a ramjet or even scramjet motor to accelerate to higher speeds and maintain those speeds with an idle throttle setting maximising fuel use and eliminating drag so it would coast enormous distances to a target area... perhaps 500km or more.

Russia has already proven the effectiveness of artillery on the battlefield and it would also kill two birds with one stone...

To attack a modern well defended group of ships is the equivalent of trying to attack a military base on land.

Now for use against HATO forces that appears to be pretty easy... Iskander and Smerch and a range of other weapons would be very effective because the west simply does not have the depth and numbers of SAMs to cope with even just a small portion of missiles the Russians already have in service let alone drones.

Use against Russian forces however means most of your missiles and weapons are going to get shot down and you need a surge attack with extra missiles and decoys after careful planning and examination of their forces to find weak spots and holes in their defence. In this case tiny drones have proven the only vector with any real success, but you need small groups of men to operate near enemy positions because such small drones don't have a long range or a significant payload.

For a Russian vessel there will be large numbers of air defence weapons, but on western ships not so many... which means if a Russian destroyer with hundreds of SAMS and dozens of attack missiles of various types including anti sub and anti ship and land attack, has a 152mm gun it can approach the enemy ship to within say 120km or so and start firing its main gun... lets say 50-60 rounds per minute... that is a lot of targets to deal with at one time that would rapidly overwhelm most individual targets... it is essentially a drone swarm.

In 10 years time imagine a cruiser with a couple of 203mm gun turrets with thousands of shells as a normal load that can hit targets out to 300-400km with precision and a reduced payload of perhaps 30-40kgs and 200km range with a 100kg HE payload... that would be devastating.

The first shell they fire might be a loitering drone to monitor the attack so they can decide if follow up attacks are needed.

A Russian official has already mentioned that 152mm guns are going to be introduced for the Navy... most likely to replace the 130mm Bereg coastal defence guns that compliment and support their coastal missile batteries... they have 100mm guns on their corvettes and 130mm guns on their Frigates... it would make sense to have 152mm guns on their Destroyers and perhaps 203mm guns for their cruisers... even if they are fitted to a few ships for naval gun support for the new helicopter carriers and landing ships.

The British learned in the Falklands war the value of such support.

The Americans put their Iowa class battleships back into service and the Soviets put their Sverdlov class ships with their old 152mm guns back into service for the same reasons... which probably seemed a good idea at the time but was probably more problems than it was worth.

To be clear the 203mm stuff is my speculation but they have talked about 152mm for the navy and joint development of guns and ammo is an efficient way to get good weapons into service.

I would think the Russian Army and Navy would be looking at the future of 152mm and 203mm rounds... if you have to reduce weight and calibre to get the extra range then going to a larger calibre and even using full sized 152mm rounds in sabot fired from 203mm gun tubes would be a quick easy long range shell because of the extra propellent in the larger calibre gun will make it go faster and further.

The larger calibre means more room to play with propulsion systems like ramjets etc and for reduced calibre HE rounds of very low drag the bigger calibre gun means more HE delivered further.

Good ideas are sometimes just obvious.